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Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using millions of Digitized Books

Author

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  • Hills, Thomas

    (Department of Psychology, University of Warwick)

  • Proto, Eugenio

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CAGE and IZA)

  • Sgroi, Daniel

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CAGE and Nuffield College, University of Oxford)

Abstract

We develop a new way to measure national subjective well-being across the very long run where traditional survey data on well-being is not available. Our method is based on quantitative analysis of digitized text from millions of books published over the past 200 years, long before the widespread availability of consistent survey data. The method uses psychological valence norms for thousands of words in different languages to compute the relative proportion of positive and negative language for four different nations (the USA, UK, Germany and Italy). We validate our measure against existing survey data from the 1970s onwards (when such data became available) showing that our measure is highly correlated with surveyed life satisfaction. We also validate our measure against historical trends in longevity and GDP (showing a positive relationship) and conflict (showing a negative relationship). Our measure allows a first look at changes in subjective well-being over the past two centuries, for instance highlighting the dramatic fall in well-being during the two World Wars and rise in relation to longevity.

Suggested Citation

  • Hills, Thomas & Proto, Eugenio & Sgroi, Daniel, 2019. "Historical Analysis of National Subjective Wellbeing using millions of Digitized Books," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1186, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1186
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    2. Crafts, Nicholas, 2021. "The 15-Hour Week: Keynes's Prediction Revisited," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 566, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. Tykhonov, Vyacheslav & van Leeuwen, Bas, 2021. "Regional sentiments in Covid tweets in the Netherlands before and during peak infections," MPRA Paper 110879, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Rossouw, Stephanie & Greyling, Talita, 2020. "Big Data and Happiness," GLO Discussion Paper Series 634, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
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    6. Ali Kabiri & Harold James & John Landon-Lane & David Tuckett & Rickard Nyman, 2020. "The Role of Sentiment in the Economy: 1920 to 1934," CESifo Working Paper Series 8336, CESifo.
    7. Sudeep Bhatia & Lukasz Walasek & Paul Slovic & Howard Kunreuther, 2021. "The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Evidence from Natural Language Analysis of Online News Articles and Social Media Posts," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 179-203, January.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    historical subjective well-being ; language ; big data ; GDP ; conflict;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

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